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Veronika’s (Sarah Michelle Gellar) suicide note in Veronika Decides to Die (2009) is a tirade against ad campaigns, modern marketing and consumer culture. She sends it to the Village Voice after finding herself disgusted by one of their magazine cover stories. She’s angry at the world, and her suicide note is her final middle-finger. “Green is not the new black,” she writes, “hasn’t anyone else noticed that everyone has gone completely insane? Why are we all so afraid to look at things as they really are? Slogans like this have succeeded in distracting us all from the things that really matter. There’s no other escape. I want people to know that I’m killing myself rather than participate in the collective madness of this world that you’re all living in. This is not the real world.

The opening of the film surrounding the suicide scene is a voiceover about futility and hopelessness. It tells a story of marrying a hypothetical man, only to have him cheat on her. Veronika works a cubicle desk job she obviously hates, monologues about the pointlessness of relationships and love in today’s culture of shallow morality and superficiality, and comes home to an empty house. She’s “successful” in the American definition of the term, in which she is an attractive young woman with a decent-paying job, and a place to live. But that’s not life. Life is passion, and Veronika is acutely devoid of any.

Shortly after her suicide attempt and arrival in the mental hospital, we learn that Veronika once had a full scholarship to Juilliard for classical piano. Her parents encouraged her to go to a regular school instead so she could land a normal, good-paying job. It’s apparent that she somewhat blames them for the way her life turned out, as sticking with piano would have been a rewarding, artistic endeavor for which she had love. Her dreams are gone now, and she’s in a life she doesn’t enjoy. She sees most everyone else as victim to the same shattered sense of hope, but thinks everyone else is unaware they’ve given up on what really matters to them. Magazine slogans and American culture tell people what they should care about and aspire to be, instead of people deciding that on their own. People forget about their dreams and ambitions.

She’s jaded with society. She doesn’t feel like there’s much worth living for because there’s nothing to work towards. She’s successful, but miserable. Her life is computer screens, grey cubicles, stainless steel and subway cars.

Serious depression is obviously at work for a combination of reasons. She wanted to kill herself as much as any clinically depressed person who has attempted suicide does. It’s a dark subject, but one that is real for many people.